Some days just swoop in an poop all over you. Today I'm having one of those. I'm still trying my darndest to be in holiday mode. 5:30 p.m. is creeping to me slowly. I suspect there will be more tsunamis between now and then but I remain optimistic. This is my compatriot/teammember/carpool partner. We are in the midst of one of those poop-shower kind of days. Things have briefly slowed down and I choose to take a mental break on my blog and she chooses to become a human pretzel, which brings me immense giggles.
She's younger and smaller than me. If I could contort myself like this I would. I'd probably get a back-ache. FML.

This week has been a very busy one in my universe. I haven’t really had time to get in the appropriate holiday spirit. Few things tickle me like holidays. The decorations, the traditions, the fun…its all just too fabulous. So, starting right now, I’m in Halloween mode. Usually this begins around Oct. 1, but I’m just too busy and important in 2009.

Me and manfriend are trying to be Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum for the Saturday night festivities. It’s been more difficult than I imagined to find the proper parts of the costume. Don’t want to release any spoilers…more on that later. It was only an accident to be characters from Alice in Wonderland two years in a row. Last time around we did Alice and the Mad Hatter. That one will be hard to top. We’ll see.
I’ve been around to every Halloween shop in the area and this is what I’m thinking are my favorite things about Halloween:

1. Costumes made for infants and/or pets. They are all about the same. All are stinkin’ too cute for words. If I had a tot it would be wearing this.

2. CANDY. Can’t. get. enough. I also love feeling valid in eating total crap because it’s a “holiday.”

3. Jack-o-lanterns. I think they’re so cool. At what other time can you make a vegetable a spooky, yet classic, decoration for any space? See photo of cubicle.
These are the things I wish didn’t exist at Halloween time:

1. Whore-bag costumes. Why must all costumes for women be super slutty and modeled by porn stars. Hate that.

This is a snapshot of the prince and I the night I got him! What a precious little pup. I’m reminded of this night because someone in my office came in today with a brand new kitty he’s adopting. Oh the memories. I wasn’t going to bring this story to the blogosphere, but with a kitten around I can't help but think of my own little baby and it was a pretty big deal:

This weekend the scariest of my life happened. Me, manfriend and the prince were enjoying a nice sunshiny walk on Katy Trail, a fabulous jogging path near my apartment.
We’d only strolled about a quarter of a mile and something came over the prince. He sat down in the middle of the trail and refused to move. This is not uncommon, he’s a stubborn little bugger at times. Then things got scary. He sort of collapsed and went totally limp and lifeless.

Manfriend sprung into action and ran back to the apartment to get the car. I was left alone with a limp poodle in the most crucial minutes. This was excruciating. I don’t want to go into the details, which are horrifying. We rushed him to the emergency vet and they wisked him to the back to be revived. At this point I thought the prince may be dead. They determined that he had some sort of allergic reaction to cause him to go into acute shock and possibly death.

Never fear, the prince was saved. But, only after a few hours in ICU, an overnight hospital stay, and 24-hours of observation and medications. I really never have been so overwhelmed with worry/fear in my life. To all the parents of actual babies out there, bless your hearts. I just caught a quick glimpse of how serious and worrisome it must be to have a tot.

Even days later, the image of his sick little body is burned into my mind. The prince is my world. He depends on me implicitly for everything he needs. Bad day, but the little fartknocker is back to being my favorite partner in crime.

I’m a Twi-hard and I’m proud of it. I’ve been trying to organize my thoughts about Twilight since the insemination of Poodleism. I think I’m ready to go there.

It occurs to me to write about this now because we are less than one month away from the release of New Moon, the second film installment of what I’m going to call “The Greatest Work of Fiction of Our Time.” I’m annoyed how much promotional footage has been released. I hate the spoilers, but I can’t look away. Damn that beautiful Edward face. I’ve heard that the Twilight action figures have hit Toys R Us Stores. If I didn’t have to buy food and utilities, the whole cast would be lined up in the cube cheering me through my day. It really irritates me how much they’re promoting this movie. For some ridiculous reason I still feel like Edward is still only my little secret fantasy boyfriend…diluted notion, I’m aware, but it gets me through the day sometimes. I also have a hard time separating the characters of Twilight from the real-life actors – a common mixup in the celebrity-gossip infested jungle that is my consciousness...

Recall back to my post about my cubicle. I can’t get enough Edward. But, I’ve decided that I only love Edward Cullen, not Rob Pattinson. I find R-Patz to be an annoying man-diva whose tousled hair wavers between bedroom-sexy-messy and genuinely unhygienic. That aside, Edward haunts/perverts my thoughts all day. One of my best pals, another Twi-hard (who ridiculed before I went and got all addicted …my bad), once told me that it was hard not to compare Edward with her real-life boyfriend. I totally agree. We are educated, sensible grown ups and Twilight/Edward fever has taken us over. Yeah, he’s that amazing. One part dangerous plus one part dreamy equals one whole perfect.

I detest Bella (and Kristen Stewart) with a firey fury that I really should reserve for happenings in my actual life. Bella the character is a finicky embarrassment to independent women everywhere. Kristen Stewart is an ungrateful little poptart who thinks she’s freaking Julia Roberts now. Totes over her.

Jacob (Taylor Lautner) is an ok character. He’s definitely sexy to the max, but just too pure and innocent for my taste. You’d think a werewolf would introduce an obligatory element of danger into the equation, but he bores me. What does not bore me are the rumors of Taylor Lautner/Taylor Swift romantical trysts around Hollywood. More gossip, less moral fiber please. Clearly I’m team Edward when it comes to the Twilight love triangle.

I could go on about this forever, and probably will come back to this topic as the unavoidable barrage of editorial photography hits magazines the next few weeks. The point is this: I’m so freaking excited for this movie I could just tinkle. In the meantime I’ll just be dreaming of my Edward. Judge me please…I dare you.

It's TX/OU weekend. Pretty much everyone reading this is aware of the all the fun, and undoubtedly ridiculousness that will occur. Although I'm thriled for the spirit, the partying, the coordinated game-day outfits....I'm approaching this Longhorn holiday with a bittersweet attitude. I miss all my homies who are afar this year. I can't help but be reminded of years past when I was surrounded by all my besties. Totes miss those days. Here's a pic from last year. I wish I could find a more throwback one (although, I don't know if I want to face how skinny I was on the first TX/OU weekend at age 18).

Another wind of change is sweeping through my conciousness this TX/OU weekend. I'm approaching the 3-day debauchery festival with a new spirit. I'm hoping not to spend 3-5 days hungover afterward. In the past, I've not budgeted my party engergies very well on this weekend. Now that I'm a big girl, I'm determined to effectively get through the weekend so that it includes copious fun and I can go into my next week with something to show for myself. How to achieve this....I'm still brainstorming.

One thing remains the same however. It's 4:52 and OU still sucks....hard. Hookem Horns!

One of the most exciting, but sometimes disheartening, aspects of moving to a new city is discovering all the little awesome places that eventually become your go-tos. Since moving to Dallas, I’ve been on a quest for truly delicious breakfast tacos. They’re one of my favorite – or at least in my top 5—foods on Earth

Austin, Texas is a virtual goldmine of tasty breakfast taco options, which brought me endless satisfaction and lots of hangover remedies during my time there. Dallas does not offer the same cornucopia of choices. But this weekend, manfriend and I ventured to the other side of the highway, the ominous “eastside”, on a recommendation from a colleague for the best tacos in Dallas. We found them. Hallelujah!

The place was called Taco Joint. It is located in a decidedly rough area of town occupied by hipsters who are too hip for uptown and genuinely scary homeless crackheads. Already sounds like Austin. The line was out the door and the parking lot was chalked full of luxury cars of various sorts. There must be something inside worth the sojourn to the other side of the tracks.

After the 30 minute wait, our tacos arrived and boy were they worth the wait. Not only were they delicious, but manfriend contends they could be the best we’ve ever sampled. And we are researched enough on this topic to make such a confident assertion. Fresh scrmbled eggs, melted cheese, crispy bacon, fresh salsa….mmmmmm. If the line hadn’t been so long I definitely would have been up for ordering more just to make sure that I left in a taco-induced coma. Success.

The real point of this story is that, after a few months in a town that I’m becoming more and more convinced is not for me, I found a shining bastion of awesomeness. I have a renewed faith in the good of Dallas-ites and am feeling energized to continue searching for similar little treasures around the city.

Another sort of off-the-wall thing for today. Today for lunch I ate for the first time ever in my life Ramen noodles. Cruisin’ at my local Kroger a pricetag that said 16¢ caught my eye and I couldn’t pass it up.

Side distraction: me and my colleagues just debated why the cents symbol ( ¢ ) isn’t used very often these days. I believe it’s wandered into obsolescence because of inflation. So few things cost less than one dollar that the up-and-coming generation of purchasers will have no need for it. A wiser man than I thought that it’s because for whatever reason the cents symbol didn’t get a key on the modern keyboard so people never think of it. I guess when we scrapped the typewriter we threw out some of the keys too. It seems unfair, but I bet he’s right. Honestly seeing the cents sign is what caused me to pull over my grocery cart.

Back on track: given these hard times we live in, and that I’m totally strapped for cash because I just can’t seem to lay off buying sparkly things of various sorts, I’ve begun to bargain hunt like never before. This is what attracted me to the Ramen. I don’t know if it never appealed to me, or I believed I was above a 16¢ dinner, or what, but I’m converted. It was one of the more fabulous finds of recent memory. I don’t know how I got through my college years without sampling it, but now my lunchtime fare is headed to a whole new place. I want to get to the store to try all the flavors now. This first purchase was an experiment (I’m wondering now why I didn’t just grab a few of the things since they’re so economical. I was probably trying to save money, so I skipped the extra Ramen to get another Lean Cuisine, which has a $3.00 pricetag. Hahaha).

Nonetheless, it’s the little things in life that make the days go by. Things like Ramen, fabulous nail polish colors, tame poodles and episodes of Seinfeld on late night TV that I’ve actually never seen make my world go ‘round. I’m in my cube with a tummy full of warm sodium-saturated tastiness and I couldn’t be happier. Please suggest other budget-smart items if you have them. I just went to a whole new realm of open mindedness. I’m a little mad at my old ultra-quick meal standbys (Lean cuisine, easy mac, hot pockets) for being so expensive.